Surely, if anywhere in the world, peace was here.  But to its owner this very peace and quietness was becoming intolerable.  The waiting days were so long, the sleepless nights of uncertainty were so weary.  When her work was done, and Edith sat with a book or some sewing under the arbor where the grape clusters hung, growing dark and transparent, and the boy played about near her, she had a view of the blue sea, and about her were the twitter of birds and the hum of the cicada.  The very beauty made her heart ache.  Seaward there was nothing—­nothing but the leaping little waves and the sky.  From the land side help might come at any hour, and at every roll of wheels along the road her heart beat faster and hope sprang up anew.  But day after day nothing came.

Perhaps there is no greater bravery than this sort of waiting, doing the daily duty and waiting.  Endurance is woman’s bravery, and Edith was enduring, with an almost broken but still with a courageous heart.  It was all so strange.  Was it simply shame that kept him away, or had he ceased to love her?  If the latter, there was no help for her.  She had begged him to come, she had offered to leave the boy with her cousin companion and go to him.  Perhaps it was pride only.  In one of his short letters he had said, “Thank God, your little fortune is untouched.”  If it were pride only, how could she overcome it?  Of this she thought night and day.  She thought, and she was restless, feverish, and growing thin in her abiding anxiety.

It was true that her own fortune was safe and in her control.  But with the usual instinct of women who know they have an income not likely to be ever increased, she began to be economical.  She thought not of herself; but of the boy.  It was the boy’s fortune now.  She began to look sharply after expenses; she reduced her household; she took upon herself the care of the boy, and other household duties.  This was all well for her, for it occupied her time, and to some extent diverted her thoughts.

So the summer passed—­a summer of anxiety, longing, and dull pain for Edith.  The time came when the uncertainty of it could no longer be endured.  If Jack had deserted her, even if he should die, she could order her life and try to adjust her heavy burden.  But this uncertainty was quite beyond her power to sustain.

She made up her mind that she would go to the city and seek him.  It was what he had written that she must not on any account do, but nothing that could happen to her there could be so bad as this suspense.  Perhaps she could bring him back.  If he refused, and was angry at her interference, that even would be something definite.  And then she had carefully thought out another plan.  It might fail, but some action had now become for her a necessity.

Early one morning—­it was in September-she prepared for a journey to the city.  This little trip, which thousands of people made daily, took on for her the air of an adventure.  She had been immured so long that it seemed a great undertaking.  And when she bade good-by to the boy for the day she hugged him and kissed him again and again, as if it were to be an eternal farewell.  To her cousin were given the most explicit directions for his care, and after she had started for the train she returned to give further injunctions.  So she told herself, but it was really for one more look at the boy.